What do we want?
To diagnose cancer a piece of tissue is taken from the affected area. This can bepart of the normal treatment like removal ofthe cancer mass by means ofoperation or a tissue biopsy can be taken for diagnostic reasons. This is tissue isroutinely send to a pathology department to precisely diagnose the cancer.Usually only a small sample of the tissue biopsy is needed for the diagnosis. Justas written information is stored in patients' notes the sample used to diagnosecancer is then kept in the archives of the pathology department. These archivescan also be used for medical research.
The parts of the tissue, which are not used for diagnosis, are residual tissues.These are later when the diagnosis is complete destroyed. This is the tissue,which cancer researchers want to collect for medical research purposes. Thebest way to preserve the tissues is to snap freeze small samples and store thesein liquid nitrogen for future use.
The preserved tissue of a cancer contains clues about how cancer develops.We want to collect and store this valuable tissue in order for it to be used in futurecancer research.
However, one comprehensive cancer center is often not able to collect enough samples of a certain type or subtype of cancer to do the required statisticalsignificant experiments to be absolutely sure the results are right.
Therefore, OECI-TuBaFrost wants to enable cancer researchers to find largeamounts of high quality samples needed to do the needed statistical significantexperiments. These can be shared amongst the participating institutes and/oramongst consortia in a project-supporting environment. In addition, offer acomplete exchange platform with rules for access, exchange, standardization, harmonization,annotation and use, so exchange is in line with local law and ethics and with high quality samples and data.

What will happen with the tissue ?
There are strict instructions about how to store human tissue. These areindividual to each country. All tissue will be frozen in an internationallystandardized way. The frozen tissue will then be stored in the hospital where thepatient has been diagnosed/treated.

All of the tissue samples for the collection are given a code number. This is so allsamples are anonymous. This is usually done by the technician who worksclosely with the pathologist involved in the diagnosis of the original tissuesample.